More Important Than Fear
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear” – James Neil Hollingworth
I think that “something else is more important” is a tool that I use in my life. It is what has been getting my body out of bed one hour earlier to excercise. Not because I “really” want to, but because if I can’t do this simple thing, then how will I be able to accomplish everything that I want?
I think that this is where the “your why should make you cry” comes into place. It is where all of the obstacles sort of fade away because you are so focused that you don’t see them; fear doesn’t even have a chance to enter into your framework. You are totally in the zone.
I don’t stay in this place 24/7. It is so intense I think that I would burn out. But I do visit it often.
Present Circumstances
“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” – Dr. Nido R. Qubein
We need to remember that everyday is a new day. A new place to start. If you don’t like something then you can change it. You can literally reinvent you!
We all have a habit of making everything in our lives much harder than it really is.
What I learned about today with the makeover is that there are so many tricks to hide the areas that aren’t perfect – I think that this is such a perfect example of how knowledge can make a dramatic difference in really anything in our lives.
I always thought that you couldn’t make a big difference – and after today, I know it a whole new way how small changes can make a big difference!
Imagination
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” – Gloria Steinem
I think that she is taking “dreaming” one step forward when it gets into planning. This speaks to me of mind mapping, when we take logic out of the picture and say what if…., no limits to what could get us from point A to point B.
It is when we let our imagination run wild, that real possibilities that we never thought of before pop into out head. We look at it and we think maybe…, if I did this and that happened, then this would work.
That is when the excitement steps in, because now we can see the real possibility that our dream could just maybe come true.
Strong Desire
“The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” – Napoleon Hill
I have a strong desire and Saturday put a kettle on to boil to take several things that I have wanted to make a difference about and bring them into existence through the medium of a TV show.
It will take me about a month to put the structure together and then I will be sharing with everyone and asking for “mastermind” ideas and contacts to make it happen. In research mode now.
Just remember that big dreams can become reality if they come from a place of big desire. It is something that builds fire in the belly, heart and brain – it unites them into a single focus of achievement. It makes the things that normally take you out of the game seem unimportant until I get this thing done. Everything else can take a back seat to this one thing.
I wish all of you to have this same desire to that one thing that you came here to do. I know that you all have this and that you can all do it!
Potential
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia
Has anyone ever asked you what’s wrong, you look sad, unhapppy or mad – but you didn’t feel that way? You were just lost in lost or concentrating on something and somehow the expression on your face wasn’t happy. I think that we can all at times be walking around in a mental fog, just not paying attention to not only how we might look, but just not seeing what is happening around us.
I have been researching charities today for a project I am working on and it is amazing the number of them looking not only for donations, but your volunteer hours to help them reach those in need.
We all have the potential to impact the lives of those around us, whether it is a simple smile, a listening ear, or reaching out via a local charity with an act of caring from our hearts. It doesn’t have to be money, although they all need that – it can be as simple as giving someone a ride to the store or medical appointment and back home. We all have the ability to give of ourselves in some way. Today reach out at least with a smile and make someones day a little better.
Truth
“We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.” – William James
I always remember that Jack Nicholson line in “A Few Good Men”, “you can’t handle the truth”. That is what this quote reminds me of. Fact is a reality and truth is a perception of that reality.
It is hard to separate out facts from our truths. That is why we should never be married to “one” truth. As we grow, mature, and expand our learning we see things that we believe to be true, no longer serve us. If we are married to those beliefs it stops our growth right there and we stagnate.
If we change the meaning of an event, our brain responds to that new meaning and truth is thereby altered. For example you see someone you know who is married or in a relationship sitting in a restaurant hugging and hanging on a man you don’t know. You could assume that this person is having an affair and make a judgment about that. Later you could learn that this man was her brother. Now you have some facts that change the truth that you were believing.
I believe that this is how someone can have an experience which we would assume to be an experience that would make them a victim, yet they are not a victim. They have changed the meaning of the event, and by doing so they have altered the truth so that they were not the victim. They turn the event into the gift of learning how to go through the fire of tribulation and come out the other side stronger than they were when it began. To me this is what makes us all hero’s in our own lives – that we realize that we have ultimate control over our own lives.
Ultimate Goal
“People who see their dreams come to pass are people who have resolve and backbone. They are the ones who refuse to settle for the little victories along the way and see themselves at the finish line, instead continuing on, pushing on toward the ultimate goal. No one wants to be mediocre. You are made for so much more. Realize that what your mind focuses on, it can achieve. It is up to you. Pay attention only to those silent whispers within that say ‘You can do it!'” – Linda McLean
Pep talk for myself today. This quote came from a story of how this company in the Swiss Alps takes people on a hike up the mountain as a group. About halfway is a restaurant that they stop at to eat lunch. The story said that about half of every group will quit the hike at that point because they are satisfied with reaching that height, and lose their gas to continue on towards the goal of the mountain top.
I think that this happens to a lot of us. We see some progress and stop to enjoy it, take a breath and then we can’t get started again. I know that a couple of years ago I was getting up each morning and running. I had been doing it for a month or two and got one of those colds and stopped running while I was sick. Or so I thought at the time. What happened was that I couldn’t get the drive back that had got me started in the first place and I ended up with no running and a bunch of excuses.
Resolve and backbone – what this means to me is that I need a big enough why for the goal so that when I want to stop I can say, no. I can’t stop because …., and it is a big enough “because” – that my butt gets out of bed and out the door to what I need to be doing. I can celebrate the little victories as long as I still have the urgency of doing, and I remind myself that this victory is mediocre and I am going for the gold! I can do it and so can you!
Powerful Desires
“Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so.” – Marcia Wieder
It always a matter of what you focus on. When you watch a baby trying to walk and they fall down on their butts because they lose their balance, watch how they look up to see your reaction. They are trying to decide if they should be hurt or not. You laugh and they laugh, reassured that they are ok.
We are all like that baby taking it’s first steps when we are bringing our dreams into reality. Only we don’t have a mom to look at to mirror what she does as our reaction. Our reaction is totally up to us.
So if we believe that our dreams are so powerful that they blow away the resistance; then that will be our reality. If we fall down on our butts, we can just laugh, pick ourselves up and take another step and another, until we have a steady walking balance and then we can start running!
Doing
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing in not enough; we must do.” – Leonardo da Vinci
It is no wonder that he was accomplished in so many areas. He didn’t just learn about things from a take in knowledge standpoint, he was impressed to do something with it. When he studied birds, he came up with aircraft – he took in the knowledge and tried to see how it could be used.
What knowledge do you have that has never been used? In order to change the world we need to change how we think. If we all took the knowledge that we have and used it to think outside the box, what wonderful sorely needed inventions and concepts/plans or ideas could we come up with? What in our lives “must” we do?
Patterns
“When patterns are broken, new world emerge.” Tuli Kupperburg
A great truth – we can’t change anything unless we are willing to break a pattern. Whatever we accept and believe determines what we achieve.
I remember when my mom stopped smoking. She was used to waking up each morning and we would bring her the first cup of coffee and she would smoke a cigerette before she even got out of bed. When she stopped smoking that was the only time of the day she had a hard time, because she associated that cup of coffee with the first cigarette. She had to break the pattern by getting out of bed and getting her cup of coffee in the kitchen, so that she wouldn’t crave that first cigarette.
If you have a habit that you would like to change, you need to change the pattern around the habit in order to achieve success. Create a new pattern to replace the old one. Don’t let the baggage around old beliefs and patterns that have outlived their usefulness control your future.
You are in charge. Remember that while change is not easy; it is really, really simple!
Honor
“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be” – Socrates
Pretenses can be exhausting. Just look at the reality shows and at how unhappy and messed up those people are. You have the nice house, but it needs luxurious furnishings, then the fancy car, the expensive education; the great job; the most well behaved children who are all honor roll students; and on and on. They usually end up with a father who is never home because he is working to support a lifestyle and not a family; a broken marriage; house lost in foreclosure or someone committing suicide. Who needs that kind of stress?
What if we all took off the mask of who we represent ourselves to be and just lived our life as who we are? Why are we are all afraid that if we just be ourselves that no one will love us? Isn’t it funny that we “all” have the same fear?
The “reality” is that we are all human, and just as we sometimes make mistakes, we also have this tremendous ability to forgive and to love someone from deep in our soul and make miracles happen. Here’s to having a miraculous life!
Good Life
“Let’s choose today to quench our thirst for the ‘good life’ we think others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our lives. We can then offer the universe the gift of our grateful hearts.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
It is funny how we look at the “appearance” of someone else’s life and think that if only we had that life, we would be happy. The actuality is that we are all the same inside. That person has the same doubts, fears, worries that we do. If we knew them better we would see their good and bad points. They in turn are probably looking at someone else’s life and thinking if only I had that life I would be happy.
Someone’s email heading that I got yesterday was titled, “love the one your with” (makes the tune pop into my head everytime I read it) – which was a popular song many years ago. Unlike the song, they were addressing loving ourselves, because that is the one we are with.
The world doesn’t need another Brad Pitt or Angelina or Julia Roberts. Whoever it is that you are looking at and wishing you were them – their placecard is already filled. It needs me and it needs you to be who we were born to be.
Look inside and be grateful for the family you have; your personal and work relationships and expand it out into the universe. Start a list today and add to it for the next week – if you can’t think of anything, start with “I am grateful for the breath of life” and go on from there.
This morning I am grateful for green stop lights; for the starry sky I am saw on my morning jog; for FB giving me a writing outlet; for all of the “like” buttons that people press!